


Cacti

by TheFalconWarrior



Series: Touch the Sky [8]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Gen, If I could figure out what exactly crack means, May just possibly be a bit cracky, The Art of a Home, sibling stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:20:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25416064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFalconWarrior/pseuds/TheFalconWarrior
Summary: Dick and Tim get a new apartment. They never meant for it to become a greenhouse.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Tim Drake, The Batsibs, The Titans - Relationship, Tim Drake & Conner Kent & Bart Allen
Series: Touch the Sky [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1587028
Comments: 6
Kudos: 84





	Cacti

**Author's Note:**

> Just a nutty story.

It started with a cactus. 

_One._

But some more context is in order. 

It all _really_ started with the March Exodus, as Duke called it. 

Circumstance had found Dick, Jason, and Tim joining the others at the manor. 

Bruce and Alfred, were, of course, constant fixtures at the Manor. Damian, too, since he had joined the family and probably til he was 18 (Tim being the only one of them who would ever be able to get away with becoming an emancipated minor.) Duke had moved in a little before the adoption papers went through. 

After Dick had come home from Spyral, he’d spent a week in Tim’s apartment, and another in Jason’s, before settling at the Manor. 

He was still there two weeks later, anyways, when Tim finally decided to pack his bags and leave his beloved Theater behind. 

(He’d been finding notes from Ra’s _all over the place_ ever since Dick had left, and frankly, the situation had gotten way above Tim’s creep-tolerance level.) 

Jason joined them the next day, thanks to a blown-up apartment, and a lack of sibling apartments to crash (ie. take over). 

Jason had shared the story to the other two stranded Robins with great relish, in something of a my-story-is-better-than-yours kind of thing. 

All he’d told Bruce was, “My apartment blew up,” and Bruce pinched his nose and asked, “Do I need to know.” 

Dick assured him that no, he really didn’t. 

Cass popped in for a bit, too, just to round off the whole thing. 

And then, of course, began the Exodus. 

Jason was inevitably the first to leave, quickly locating a small, crappy apartment in the Narrows and hopping out. It probably wouldn’t last long, either getting wrecked or discovered, but that was how Jason operated. 

Anyways, if he was lucky, Dick or Tim would have found their own place by then so he’d have a place between-apartments if he needed it. 

The thing was, Tim was doing his research, considering his options. He wanted to find a place that could be permanent—for as long as possible. But after so much time living in the same house as Damian—even if the Manor was _huge_ —he was really starting to consider scrapping the whole thing and just moving out. Or at least relocating to one of Bruce’s safehouses. 

It was a secret he’d carry to his grave, but Dick was the one who asked if he wanted to rent an apartment together. 

There was, logically, no reason for them to rent together, really. Lord knows both of them had enough financial backing thanks to Bruce Freaking Wayne, even if none of the four of them older kids was really comfortable with touching that except for emergencies. Besides which, Tim was CEO of Wayne Enterprises, and granted, he’d arranged to have a lower salary and raise employee wages, but he still had enough to buy an apartment if he needed one. 

But the thing was...Tim had spent a lot of his life alone. It took him a while to learn _not_ to be alone all the time, but once he had, it was...nice. So besides the issue with Ra’s... 

...there were...mental and emotional benefits to not living alone. 

And of all his brothers, Dick was, for obvious reasons, the one he got along with best. And possibly the only one he’d be able to live alone with for longer than a week and still hold on to his sanity. 

So he said yes. 

(He never told anyone that Dick had asked him to stay. He didn’t want Damian to hear of it. Even after all these years, kid could be a jealous little brat—and there was just no reason to cause trouble for all _three_ of them.) 

They found a small apartment in the heart of Gotham, nicely positioned for access to the gym where Dick had found a job as an instructor, Wayne Tower, and Gotham U. 

_And_ , of course, Nightwing and Red Robin’s patrol routes. 

And the abandoned indoor parking with the little-known unfinished underground parking space, which was the kind of thing the emergency Wayne money was for. 

Anyways. Cactus. 

Three days after they’d moved in, Red Robin undid the security on the kitchen window and stumbled in. Nightwing was still out on the streets, but Tim Drake had a 7 A.M. class tomorrow and it was already late. 

The apartment was a mess. It _did_ look pretty lived in, despite looking more like a warehouse than a home at the moment thanks to the piles of boxes in the bedrooms and living area. The kitchen was the most organized—a coffee maker set on a counter, disposable dishes in the cabinets, and plenty of food (hey, they liked to eat.) The bathroom, too, had towels and shampoo and a first-aid kit and toothbrushes. Meanwhile, one of the larger boxes in the living room seemed to be acting as temporary coffee table and Dick and Tim had both been sleeping on the floor the past few days. 

Hey, there was Important Stuff to be handled first. Security. Stashing suits in the pantry. A trip to IKEA and organizing clothes into closets could come later. 

Besides, as of the past three days, like today, by the time Tim—and, he was pretty sure, Dick—got home, they were too tired to really deal with the setting-up stuff at the moment. They’d live. 

Tim peeled off his costume as he slumped to the living room to snag a set of clothes out of one of his boxes, before dragging himself to the bathroom for a shower. Feeling mildly more human—albeit an extremely tired, barely awake human—he slipped into the kitchen and pulled open the fridge, and felt an honest-to-God _warmth_ when he found the boxes of leftover Indo-Chinese takeout from yesterday. 

He peeked into the three boxes until he found the hakka noodles, briefly debated warming it up, realized it was a moot point because the microwave they ordered hadn’t arrived yet, and so settled himself cross-legged on the counter (they didn’t have chairs yet, either) with his cold takeout and a plastic fork and dug in. 

There was a soft scratch against the window, and Tim’s head jerked up. He almost _growled_ —he didn’t _need_ a break-in right now, he was _hungry_ and he was _tired_ —and then the window slid up—without setting off any alarms—to reveal... 

Red Hood. 

“Evening,” Hood said cheerfully, and swung himself over the sill. 

Red Hood with a potted cactus tucked under his arm. One of those ones with a dried flower stuck to the top somehow. 

Relaxing slightly, Tim helped himself to another forkful of noodles. He raised his eyebrows and nodded at the cactus. “What the hell, Jay?” 

Jason set the cactus onto the windowsill and pulled off his hood. “It’s a cactus.” 

“Obviously. _Why_ do you have a cactus?” 

“Because unlike some people, I am _polite_ and I have _manners_ so I brought a housewarming gift.” He wandered over to the cabinets, pulled open the one next to the sink. “By the way, where do you keep the first aid kit?” 

Tim finally set down his takeout box. “Okay, either you just wanted to crash this place or you really are even more of an idiot than I thought making a stop to get a _cactus_.” Jason shrugged and made his way out of the kitchen as a sudden thought occurred to Tim. “Wait. That better not be one of Ivy’s.” He could hear Jason in the bathroom. “Jason?” Tim hopped off the counter. “Jason!” 

“Jeez, calm down, I’m not trying to kill ya anymore, remember Replacement? Now seriously, where the _hell_ is your kit.” 

Tim joined him in the bathroom, pulled out the kit, helped Jason patch up the knife wound in his arm. Jason then ate half the food in the fridge and kept Tim up until Dick arrived, at which point he disappeared out the window with a salute and a “thanks for the food.” 

Dick tilted his head as he pulled off his gloves, eying the windowsill. “Where’d the cactus come from?” 

So. No furniture, cardboard boxes, a stocked kitchen, and a cactus on the windowsill. 

Next was Garth. 

“It’s dying,” he moaned, as he sat on one of Dick and Tim’s newly acquired kitchen stools and Dick made tea in their newly acquired IKEA mugs behind him. “I can’t save it. _Please_ can you save the cactus, Roy will either _kill_ me or make fun of me _the rest of my life_.” 

Dick put a hand on his shoulder. “Easy, Garth, I’ll try to save the cactus.” 

“No guarantee he has any luck,” Tim piped up from the doorway. 

Garth buried his head in his hands as Dick shot Tim a _seriously, man?_ Look. 

Garth never actually takes the cactus back. 

Wally showed up with the next cactus. 

“I’m gonna be busy with JL stuff for a few months,” he said. “Worldwide travel, ya know, all that. So you wouldn’t mind plantsitting for me, would you?” 

“Wally,” Dick said. “How often, exactly, do you need to tend to a cactus?” 

Tim, eavesdropping and trying (and failing) to focus on statistics from the living room couch, figured Dick meant this in the “how long, exactly, are you going to be away?” sense. 

Wally, however, pulled a face. “See, I should _really_ ask someone else, seeing how _little_ you know about cacti, but I’m really in a rush. C’mon, man, do your best bud a solid?” He set the cactus onto the counter and appeared at the front door, hand on the knob. “But just so ya know, water it once a week, maybe twice, lots of sun, think desert!” And he was gone. 

Dick blinked at the potted plant leaving dusty dirt sprinkled over the stack of unopened mail. 

“It looks like a cat threw up a hairball on it,” he mused. 

“They’re trying to see whether you or Garth can keep a cactus alive longer,” Donna says. They’re in the living room, watching Netflix on the account Jason pays for. Tim glances at her sideways from his spot by the arm of the couch, an afghan pulled around himself. He’d originally intended to give his older brother and his best friend their space before Dick had dragged him out of his room to join their movie session. “They’ve made bets and everything. Wally bet on you.” 

“Well,” Dick says drily, “I guess I win, cause we’ve got Garth’s cactus, too.” 

The cactus Steph set onto the windowsill at the end of the line of three pots was an _actual_ flowering cactus, with big, pink-orange flowers blooming on thick, prickly stems. 

“Really, Steph?” Tim asked, cupping his Star Wars mug as Steph happily retrieved her own Batgirl mug from the cabinet and filled it up from the jug of coffee on the counter. 

“It’s _cute_ and it’s _pretty_ and I thought of you so I got it for you,” she said simply, plopping down at the counter next to Tim. She took a big gulp of coffee, sighed happily. “By the way, you took chem last semester, right?” 

There was a cactus on Tim’s desk. 

He blinked at it. He had gotten quite used to the row of cacti that were constantly moving about the apartment, because the windowsill was used almost as often as the front door and getting poked by cacti (or yelled at for almost crushing them or shattering their pots) was no fun, and the kitchen counters were often too crowded to house an extra four plant pots, and there were too many not-quite-unfriendly tussles in the living area to be safe for them. 

But this was Tim’s office at Wayne Tower. Tim did not _have_ cacti in his office at Wayne Tower. 

And yet here was a prickly succulent in a pot smaller than Tim’s cupped palm. 

“You won the raffle,” Tam said from the door. 

“The what now?” Tim looked from the cactus, to Tam, to the cactus, back to Tam. She was smirking. “Tam,” he said slowly. “Tam. How did you even _find out about the cacti--”_

Bart poked at the fuzzy cactus, then immediately pulled his hand away. “Have these always been here?” 

“Not all of them,” Tim answered absently, frowning at his laptop. 

“The used to be in the kitchen,” Kon put in helpfully, kicking his feet up onto the table. 

Bart poked at another cactus. “Soooooooo y’like cactuses, huh?” 

Tim swiped at his screen. “They’re cacti, not cactuses.” 

Kon snickered, and stage-whispered, “Proof that he really likes...cacti.” 

“Hm.” Bart disappeared, then reappeared in costume with his arms wrapped around four cacti. “Hey, you got pots anywhere Tim?” 

Tim looked up. “What the—BART!” 

“Where’s the brat?” Jason muttered. 

“He’s probably on his way,” Dick assured him. 

“We should just start without him,” Jason grumbled, and Cass shoved him off the couch (Jason yelped) as Duke objected, “Dude, you threw a _fit_ when we started without you.” 

“Well I wasn’t _purposedly_ late,” Jason argued as he struggled to untangle himself from a mess of afghans and fleece blankets. 

“You don’t know he’s purposedly late,” Dick pointed out. 

“ _Yeah_ , Jason,” Steph agreed. “And don’t _hog_ all the blankets.” 

Which, of course, resulted in a tussle for the blankets on the living room floor, resulting in an even bigger tangle of people and limbs smacking against the already-stained couch or the already-scratched coffee table (the room was not very big) and at least one cry of “Watch the cacti!” 

Tim, pulling popcorn out of the microwave, rolled his eyes. 

The kitchen window slid open, and Robin climbed in. 

“Drake,” he nodded. Tim nodded back. 

“Everyone’s waiting for you,” Tim noted. Dick looked up from being torn between breaking up the blanket fight and throwing pillows at them all, and his face lit up. 

“Hey, Dames,” he called, and the other seemed to let up. 

“ _Finally_.” 

“Alright, let’s get this sorted--” 

“One blanket per person, that’s only fair--” 

Robin produced a pot from under his cloak, and set it on the counter. “I’m going to change,” he announced. 

Tim, sprinkling powdered cheddar seasoning (yes, it was kinda gross, yes, they were still gonna eat it), looked up. “Seriously, Damian, _another_ one?” 

It was one of those grafted cacti—green cacti with a ball of colorful cacti on top. Tim absently reached towards it to poke at the dirt-- 

And nearly got his fingertip snapped off. 

“What the— _Damian!”_

Damian reappeared in one of Tim’s hoodies. Which may have been Cass's at one point. Or maybe Dick's. “Father won’t allow me another pet, so I will be leaving him here.” 

Jason snorted. “So you’re adopting plants too, now?” 

“Is it one of Ivy’s?” Tim demanded. 

Damian eyed him. “She abandoned him!” 

“Poor thing,” Steph murmured, but Tim could hear the snickers she was fighting. 

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Duke put in. 

“He’s harmless,” Damian insisted. 

“ _It_ nearly snapped my finger off!” 

“ _He_ was probably acting in self defense!” 

“Five bucks they keep it,” Cass whispered. 

“Dames--” Dick started. 

“You’re on,” Jason whispered. 

“Dick,” Tim said, slowly. “I don’t _care_ what Damian says, we’re not keeping one of Ivy’s plants in our apartment--” 

“This might just be better than the movie,” Steph grinned. 

They end up keeping the cacti. His name is Pluto (the others are christened Isabel, Gobi, Kitty, Peach, Tiny, and Jake, Jane, Jade and Jace) and he likes flies. 

**Author's Note:**

> So like. I’m not supposed to be here right now, as part of my most recent attempt to get my shit together, but I’ve been wandering around for the past half hour wondering if anyone else is ever struck by the sudden realization that they have a face. Like. That image in the mirror, on the Zoom window, in all those selfies taken as drawing references. With the scars and marks and hair and colors and shapes. That’s you. Like. All your thoughts and feelings and your consciousness. That’s coming from in there. That's them. Kinda. Except you’re seeing a picture. Cause you never actually see yourself. 
> 
> ...yeah this is why I dumped working on the ‘get shit together’ campaign for the rest of the night.


End file.
